The ‘Nursery Suite’ was almost the first classical music that I ever knew — from the BBC afternoon test cards in the early 1960s. The other pieces were ‘España’, ‘Valse Triste’, a waltz from ‘Eugene Onegin’ … and … the ‘Rosenkavalier’ waltzes…

Thanks, Grahame! So you never can tell what’s going to hook you in.

Dear BBC (and everyone else), please, don’t ‘dumb down’ — keep scattering the seeds of classical music and there might at least be a few new listeners in future generations. Otherwise the entire cultural heritage of our civilisation will just dribble away before anyone notices.